AROUND THE N.B.A.; Villanueva Has a Special Fan Club

Thirteen-year-old Andrew McGarey came back beaming from Madison Square Garden last month and told his parents not to wash the T-shirt Charlie Villanueva had signed for him.

In Milwaukee last Sunday, 11-year-old Rafi Wasserman spoke with Villanueva, catching up as if they were old friends, before the Raptors' game against the Bucks. Villanueva, Toronto's rookie forward, then went out and scored a career-high 48 points.

"It was really cool because he kept hitting these shots that nobody expected him to make," Wasserman said by telephone from his home in Highland Park, Ill.

Though people questioned his selection as the seventh pick in the 2005 draft, Villanueva has gradually exceeded expectations this season. And although he is still not well known in the league, he has become recognized and admired by young people like McGarey and Wasserman for another reason.

Villanueva has the same autoimmune skin disease they do -- alopecia areata. The disease, which is non-life-threatening and affects an estimated five million people in the United States, causes the loss of hair on the scalp and sometimes the body.

Villanueva is a spokesman for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation. He won the N.B.A.'s Community Assist award in February for his program, Charlie's Angels, which gives tickets to children in Toronto affected by the disease.

"It puts a smile on my face just to see the response that these kids have when they see me," Villanueva said. "It makes me want to get even more involved."

He has made 18 appearances in N.B.A. cities, visiting children with alopecia. Villanueva was playing for the University of Connecticut when he met Wasserman at a national convention for the disease, and Wasserman has stayed a loyal fan.

"He's just a gentle giant," Frank McGarey, Andrew's father, said. The McGarey family, of Darien, Conn., met with Villanueva on March 3 at the N.B.A. store in Manhattan and on March 21 at the Garden before the Raptors beat the Knicks.

"He would put an arm around the kids; he just really connects with them," McGarey said. "With this kind of thing, you stand out like a sore thumb. It's great to see -- 'Wow, here's somebody else that has had the same challenge.' "

Andrew agreed. "It was really cool for me," he said. "There aren't a lot of people that I see that have alopecia."

Villanueva, 21, became involved in the foundation to become the role model that he lacked growing up in Queens. "I didn't know anyone who had this," he said. "Kids in elementary school would be making fun of me. It was real tough, especially not knowing what it was. There used to be days where I'd be crying to my mom, 'Where's my hair? Where's my hair?' "

Villanueva has alopecia universalis -- all of his hair is gone. Basketball became Villanueva's refuge, and his success eventually bolstered his self-confidence.

He spent three years at Blair Academy, a prep school in Blairstown, N.J., before spending two years at Connecticut, winning a championship as a freshman.

This season, he is averaging 12.8 points and 6.2 rebounds a game. Those 48 points he scored against the Bucks -- his break-out game in the N.B.A. -- came in an overtime loss.

"Just looking back on it, the remarkable thing was we didn't run a lot of set plays for him," Raptors Coach Sam Mitchell said in a telephone interview Thursday. "Charlie was just focused, he kept us in the game."

Mitchell moved the 6-foot-11 Villanueva to small forward when the Raptors traded Jalen Rose to the Knicks, and Villanueva has embraced the position. His defense still needs work, Mitchell said.

"When I'm on him -- which is often -- he just looks at me and smiles and he says, 'No problem,' " Mitchell said. "I want to get mad at him, but I can't.

"The thing about Charlie is that he carries himself like an N.B.A. player. He knows he belongs. If you look at criticism he took when we chose him with the seventh pick, he kind of laughed it off."